French Car-Be-Que

Since Nicholas Sarkozy won the runoff election, anarchists and thugs have been causing quite a bit of mayhem throughout France. Hundreds of cars have been torched, and at last count, the toll was at least 400.

Sarkozy is pushing for a reform plan that would improve the lagging economic situation, which is particularly dire in the banlieus. High unemployment has been a serious problem for years, with the rate hovering around 8.7%, which is nearly double the rate in the United States. The banlieus see an unemployment rate that is much closer to 25%.

Sarkozy won a mandate and the exit polling seems to bear out that fact:

The win gave Sarkozy a strong mandate for his vision of France's future: He wants to free up labor markets, calls France's 35-hour work week "absurd" and plans tougher measures on crime and immigration.

"The people of France have chosen change," Sarkozy told cheering supporters in a victory speech that sketched out a stronger global role for France and renewed partnership with the United States.

Exit polls offered some surprises. Some 49 percent of blue-collar workers — traditionally leftist voters — chose Sarkozy, according to an Ipsos/Dell poll. Some 32 percent of people who usually vote for the Greens and 14 percent who normally support the far-left also went with Sarkozy. The poll surveyed 3,609 voters and had a margin of error of about 2 percent.

Sarkozy is sure to run into trouble with changes to the 35 hour work week from student groups and unions. They like the rules the way they are, even though it puts France at a competitive disadvantage against other European countries, let alone the US, China, or Japan.

As always, check with No Pasaran for the latest videos and updates on the volatile situation in France.

UPDATE:
Seems that there are some discrepancies between tallies from last night's violence. This report is troublesome, as it suggests that the media and/or government is trying to downplay the violence and vitrol:

Official figures released early on Monday said demonstrators set fire to 367 cars and injured 28 policemen across France, and 270 people were arrested in the violent protests against the tough-talking former interior minister.

Reports and eyewitness accounts suggested the violence was worse than the official statistics indicated because they did not include other incidents such as petrol bomb attacks on buses near Paris or smashed up shop fronts in large cities.

The final national tally was also at odds with local figures. Paris officials said 33 policemen were injured in the capital, five more than the national total cited by police.

Leftist sympathisers clashed with police in Paris's Bastille Square after Sarkozy's comprehensive victory against Socialist Segolene Royal and security forces fired repeated rounds of tear gas to break up the crowd.

Youths went on the rampage in adjoining streets, smashing phone cabins and shop windows as they moved towards the nearby Gare de Lyon station.

"Everyone got hit. We heard people were at the Bastille but we didn't expect them to come up here," said Sophie Wolkowitch, whose pharmacy near the station had its windows smashed and suffered 14,000 euros ($19,000) of damage.

Similar attacks were reported in the southeastern city of Lyon and the southern city of Toulouse. Bus shelters were smashed in the northern city of Lille and a school was set on fire in the Paris suburb of Evry.

For those unsure of where these events are taking place, here's a map of Paris.

UPDATE:
Forget discrepancies. The figures of 367 cars torched was wrong by half. The true number of cars torched was 730. The carnage was far more pervasive than the media and government was letting on.

Hundreds of people were arrested in France overnight in clashes between police and protesters angry over conservative Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory in Sunday’s presidential election, police said.

Official figures released on Monday said demonstrators set fire to 730 cars and injured 78 policemen across France, with 592 people arrested in the violent protests against the tough-talking former interior minister.

The tally was revised sharply upwards after an initial report appeared to downplay the clashes and was at odds with local police figures and eyewitness reports, which suggested widespread troubles in numerous French cities.

As I noted above, the government and media outlets have been downplaying the violence across France for years - they accepted 40 cars torched a night before the 2005 riots, and accepted 100 cars torched nightly after the 2005 riots. Now, they undercount the rioting because it exposes the problems with law enforcement across France and a creeping acceptance of the thuggish actions by anarchists and leftists. 100 cars were torched in Lille alone.

As I noted at LGF, you have to take the media reports with a grain of salt as they are pushing their own agenda, and aren't strictly reporting news and providing facts. They are purposefully underreporting and minimizing the violence. The same phenomenon happened during the reporting of the 2005 riots, and history appears to be repeating itself. The problem is that the violence is too widespread and documented for the reports to stand.

UPDATE:
Dissident Frogman ponders Sarkozy's election and what it really means for the French. His advice:

Don’t throw away that “F the French” tee-shirt just yet.

That goes well with my comments from yesterday where actions speak louder than words and it remains to be seen whether Sarkozy gets it.

UPDATE:
Gateway Pundit wonders whether the Islamists in France were getting uppity over comments Sarkozy made upon winning the election:

To women...
I want to launch an appeal to all those in the world who believe in the values of tolerance, freedom, democracy, humanism.

To all those who are persecuted by tyranny and dictatorship, to all children around the world, to all women ill-treated in the world, I want to say that the pride and the duty of France will be to be on their side.

France will be on the side of those Libyan nurses, locked up for eight years.

France will not abandon Ingrid Betancourt.

France will not abandon women forced to wear the burka.

That's not going to sit well with the Islamists one bit. Are the Islamists going to strike out and torch hundreds of cars? Possibly. Gateway also points out that Algerian press fingered the Jews for Sarkozy's win. It always comes back to the usual themes in world history - when all else fails, blame the Jews.

Thus far more than 600 were arrested around the country. I think that number is going to surge in coming days to get things under control.

Gina Cobb has further thoughts on the situation.